Description

Sue Townsend created a phenomenon in the mid-1980s, essentially incorporating lots of sharp satire and observational humour into the diary of a confused teenager. It might sound like an odd idea for a computer game, but Level 9 felt that there was an adventure in there.

Most of the major characters from the book appear, including Adrian's warring parents and their respective flings, his sweetheart Pandora, his best mate Nigel, school bully Barry Kent, and curmudgeonly pensioner Bert Baxter. The game didn't use many typed commands. You would read passages of text (many of them from the book) and be given 3 choices as to what to do, which would lead to other events unfolding. You could also use a help option which would display information about characters featured in the diary. Your aim throughout all of this was to make Adrian as popular as possible. The player's score and ranking is displayed at particular times during the game. The percentage achieved relates to the rank, with 26% being 'a spotty creep' and 38% 'a middling thicko' for example.

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Trivia

It is perhaps indicative of the game's cross-over nature of almost but not quite being a traditional adventure that the Spectrum magazine Crash! gave it two distinct reviews in the same issue - one in the Adventure Trail section (awarding it 9/10), and one in the main body of reviews (awarding it 86%)